


Impossible Things

by iSABinE



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brother Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s12e02 Mamma Mia, Gen, Hallucinations, POV First Person, POV Sam Winchester, Psychological Trauma, Season/Series 12, Stream of Consciousness, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25454263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iSABinE/pseuds/iSABinE
Summary: After Mary and Dean rescue Sam in the beginning of Season 12, he thinks he’s hallucinating again.Nothing feels real. It hasn’t for a while.The coffee in my hand is cold by the time Dean nudges me.Dean.That right there is why everything feels like floating, that drifting feeling I used to get with the hallucinations, when I wasn't even sure which way was up.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 9
Kudos: 61





	Impossible Things

Nothing feels real. It hasn’t for a while. 

The coffee in my hand is cold by the time Dean nudges me. 

Dean.

_ Impossible things. _

That right there is why everything feels like floating, that drifting feeling I used to get with the hallucinations, when I wasn't even sure which way was up. 

Dean's mouth is moving, and probably has been for a while, judging by the barely contained worry creasing his forehead. I hear the words but in that far away — drifting — sort of way. I manage an answer because, real or not, Dean is about to go into full blown overbearing brother mode. 

Mom and Cass walk in through the doors of the diner we’re in, and that’s another reason I’m sure none of this is really happening. 

Mom. 

_ Curiouser and curiouser.  _

Dean had laughed when I told him  _ Alice in Wonderland _ was like a nightmare. I didn’t ever tell him that what I meant was that it reminded me of Hell. Everything off kilter. Madness. Nothing solid. Nothing to hold onto. 

_ We’re all mad here. _

Dean is laying down a twenty on the table. His thumb nail is still chipped and purple from that poltergeist slamming it in a door last week. 

This can’t be real. 

There are three options: hallucinations, crazy-dream-druged-sleep-invasion-torture, or maybe I’m dead. I look over at Dean, cleaning the last of his fries off his plate and talking around a mouth full of masticated food. His eyes crinkle, and he throws back his head to laugh at something Cass said. 

Alive. 

Maybe this is heaven and we are all dead. 

All together. 

But even if the reapers hadn't thrown me into the empty, and even if, by some miracle, I hadn't ended up in hell, Dean still wouldn't — couldn't — be here because he had blown himself into a million pieces to save the sun. 

Supernova. Not a fair trade. 

I watch my probably-not-brother nod toward Cass. 

So that leaves two options, and both mean a departure from reality.  _ Down the rabbit hole.  _

Dean is waiting for me to stand up now, and he asks something about my feet, probably about the burns that Cass healed. I stumble through the response that Dean wants (or would want, if he were real) to hear. 

Maybe this is the sort of thing you don’t look too hard at, that you just trust in. You can’t look back on the way out of the underworld, unless you want to lose everything. Some second chances have conditions; some last minute resurrections are delicate. 

My mom, my brother, a two for one deal. 

Never has it come so easy; normally, there is blood and tears and death. 

Always death. 

***

In the back seat of the Impala, looking at the side of Mom’s face and the back of Dean’s head, I rub my palm where the old scar is a ridge of keloid. Nothing happens; the world doesn't waver and fade; the car is still sliding down the road, and Dean is still talking to Mom, glancing over at her every few seconds, like he too is afraid she might disappear. I drop my hand when Dean looks through the rearview and flash a stretched smile at him, nodding in agreement with something. I might have just agreed to visit the circus, or do laundry for a month. Would have agreed to do laundry forever or sleep in a room full of clowns if it meant this was real. My head spins. The streetlights blow by in a sickening parade, and I close my eyes. Dean’s voice is animated, and just a little hesitant in the quickly filled pauses. Mom’s voice is quiet and a little distant. 

Maybe this is a long con. Wouldn't put it past the devil to give me all these years and then take them away with a single snap of his fingers. Maybe I never got out.

***

Reality is fraying at the edges. Mom's uncertain smile when I talk to her in the bunker, her hug, they seem warm and real, but things have felt real before. The old hallucinations always felt real — or almost real. 

The smell of burning flesh, the searing agony of flames. Wonderland. 

The buzzing in my head grows louder as I say goodnight and walk to my room. I wouldn't be surprised to find Jess sitting on the bed or to see Dad pop out from behind the door with a bouquet of flowers. This must be a dream. Things like this, good luck like this, doesn't happen to me and Dean. I can’t trust this. 

***

I lay down, but my eyes won’t close, and my fingers keep moving, tapping like spiders on the sheets. I watch the fan spin overhead, around and around. Hours or minutes pass. I can hear Dean down the hall, moving around, his boots scuffing the carpet. 

If I go to sleep, will Dean (or illusion Dean) disappear? Will I be back in that basement, or somewhere else entirely? 

I don’t want to find out. 

I want to stay like this, suspended here where I can let myself believe it might be real, but my body is moving, lurching off the bed. 

I have to know. __

_ Six impossible things before breakfast. _

Always self sabotaging, this body, craving blood, sweating weakness on runs, giving out when Dean needs me, burning with holy fire, being controlled like a puppet by anyone who wants to take the wheel (anyone except me), writhing in pain, begging, weeping, always betraying me. 

Too fragile. 

My body, my mind, my soul. I can't trust myself. 

The hallway is cool; my bare feet curl against the cold. Dean's door is cracked open. I rap my knuckles on it. 

"Come in." 

I swing open the door. 

Dean is sliding a stack of photos back into his desk. He is rumpled, and I smell the alcohol across the room.

"Thought you hit the hay hours ago." Dean drags a hand through his hair and drops down onto the edge of the bed. 

"Couldn't sleep." My voice scratches against my throat. 

Dean laughs a short huff. “Been a crazy day.”

Crazy is right. 

Edge of sanity. 

What if this isn't real?

_ Alice in Wonderland _ and white rabbits and mad hatters and  _ Sometimes I've believed in as many as six impossible things before breakfast. _

What if I’m standing in Dean's empty room talking to myself? 

The room tilts; the ground feels like Jello. 

Dean is talking again. 

"Sam." 

"Huh." 

"Are you okay, dude?"

I swallow and try to pull my mouth up in a smile, but it feels tight and unnatural. Dead. Pale grey and stiff. Dean’s body lying on the bed. 

"Sam?" 

Dean is in front of me, his brows pulled down, his eyes tight. Concerned. Worried. Always the older brother, even when his reality is in question. 

"Hey man, what's wrong?" Dean tugs me forward and sits me on the edge of the bed. His hand is warm, ghosting against my forehead. 

Solid. Warm. Alive. 

"You feel sick? Did that British chick do something to you?"

Did she? 

Is she doing something right now?

Fear spikes Dean's voice. I must look bad. 

"Say something Sam; you look like you're gonna faint, or puke, or something." 

"Is this real?"

The words are out of my mouth before I can bite my tongue. 

Do I even want to know? Ignorance is bliss, until it isn't. 

_ Six impossible things. _

"What?"

Dean looks really worried now, just like he would if he were really here. Just like I would imagine. 

"Is this real?" I ask again, looking up at Dean, my voice rasping in my own ears. I’m drifting, and I don’t care if it’s towards a waterfall. 

It isn’t real anyway. 

Dean's eyes go wide and then get deeper and softer, the softness that he saves — saved — for only me. 

“Yeah, it's real, Sammy." 

I nod and look down. Of course I would imagine Dean saying those words. 

"That's what you'd say." 

"That's what I  _ am _ saying." Dean crouches down and wraps his hand around the back of my neck, forcing me to meet his eyes. "What happened, man?"

I want to just drift forever. Let this be real. Let this be real. Please. Please. Begging again. 

"She made me see things; it felt real at first. And then you came and Mom...” I clear my throat. 

Dean’s eyes are hard and dangerous now, but not for me. Dean isn’t ever dangerous for me, not even when his eyes were black like ink, not even when he was swinging a hammer, because death isn’t dangerous, not for me. 

That is a lie.

Dean  _ was _ dangerous for me: when he smiled and then waited for the hellhounds to tear him to bloody shreds, when he gasped words about being proud and fell limp in my arms, bleeding out. So much blood. Going grey. He was dangerous when he hugged me goodbye a few days ago. And he is dangerous now. 

He could disappear at any moment. 

He might, if I look too hard, fade, like a star in the night sky. Only staying if I Iook out of the corner of my eye. 

“How can this be real?" I ask. And what I mean is: how can this not be real? How can the world keep turning if this isn’t real? If you aren’t real? 

My hands are shaking with razor thin tremors. My head feels like a balloon, and a lump sits at the bottom of my throat, making my voice choked. 

"Hey, Sammy, look at me.” Dean tightens his hand around the back of my neck. I look at my brother. “I'm here; I'm real," he says. 

And he looks so real. So real. 

I can’t trust myself. 

"It's not like I haven't hallucinated you before, " my mouth is moving like it can save me, keep me afloat, "with the demon blood, the cage; I can't count how many times he made me see you — " I look away, down at my bare feet on the carpet. 

"Sam!" Dean shakes me gently, but, like a rock, or a harbor, or someplace safe, he is solid. I look back up. 

Dean grabs my hand and presses hard on the old scar. And somehow everything is sharper. Like waking up from a fever dream, a sick wonderland. 

"It's real. I'm right here. You're safe."

The repetitive snick of the fan overhead . The smell of beer on my brother's breath. Dean's crinkled eyes. The firm pressure of his grip on the old scar. The sound of our breathing. 

Alive.

Real. 

Impossible. 

Dean always comes back. Fights back from the dead, crawls from a grave, rises from a deathbed. 

My brother was — is — constant resurrection. 

Because, of all the things Dean is, most of all, he is life. 

Noise and anger. 

Laughter and pain. 

Whiskey and oil. 

Food and inane jokes. 

Warmth and protection. 

Dean is pulling me in and there is a strangled sound that I realize is my own desperate gasp for air. I am holding onto my brother like I might lose him. I almost did. 

A rock in a sea. A stone. The only stone. 

Dean is real, therefore I am. 

"It's alright Sammy; I got you. Trust me, " Dean murmured, his voice rumbling through me like home, "this is real."

This is real.

This is real. 

This is real. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first shot at writing from Sam's POV. It was hard! Tell me what you think :)  
> There are references to, and small quotes in italics from, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.


End file.
